Submarines

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Submarines

The submarine has com!etely transformed warfare at sea in the twentieth century. In 1917 German U-boats came close to defeating Brtain by cutting the vital transatlantic sealanes. It was only the introduction of the convoy system at the eleventh hour which prevented the U-boats from sweeping all merchant shipping from the seas. In World War II Admiral Karl Doenitz's U-boat fleet again attempted to sever Britain's ocean supply lines. The Battle of the Atlantic was a bitterly-fought series of convoy actions, which raged virtually from the first day of the war until Germany's surrenden In the Pacific the US Navy's submarines succeeded where the U-boats had failed and all-but destroyed Japan's merchant marine.
Since the war the combination of nuclear power and submarine-launched ballistic missiles has resulted in the SSBN - a near-invulnerable launching platform for strategic nuclear warheads. The modern submarine can remain completely submerged for weeks and the limit-ing factor is crew fatigue rather than the requirements of the boat itself. If the submarine was a dangerous weapon in two world wars, then its present-day counterpart is an immeasurably more powerful weapon and submarine warfare will dominate any future war at sea.
The technological development of the submarine and its fighting record in two world wars is related by the eminent British naval historian Antony Preston. Submarines is generously illustrated with photographs and will appeal to every warship enthusiast.

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